


67%

by starsandgutters



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Internal Monologue, M/M, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-17
Updated: 2013-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-18 06:04:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2337869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsandgutters/pseuds/starsandgutters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wonders how it’s possible to know someone down to the very <i>atoms</i> of their being, and yet not know them at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	67%

**Author's Note:**

> For [intoteacups](http://intoteacups.tumblr.com), who requested prompt Number 70 from [this meme](http://andthestarsaregone.tumblr.com/post/67289726727): 67%.

 

> _You know, just when you think you do understand, it’ll turn out you’re wrong.  You didn’t understand anything at all._

Castiel looks at Dean, in the orange glow of the motel lightbulbs, and wonders at this one particular thing: he does not understand Dean. Not in the single, slightest little bit.

He wonders how it’s possible to know someone down to the very  _atoms_  of their being, and yet not know them at all.

These are some of the things he knows about Dean:

Dean is made by roughly 53% out of water; his water is 67% hydrogen, the remaining 33% is oxygen.  12% of his atoms are carbon, the same carbon that fuels the burning of stars. There is a birthmark on the underside of his left knee that is 5.7 millimeters wide, 3.8 millimeters high. In the winter, he has 87 freckles on his face; in the summer, they are 104. He knows that Dean’s legs are slightly curved because of a lack of vitamins growing up, too many vending-machine snacks, not enough fruit, not enough fibre; he knows that there are calluses on his hands from wielding weapons, fixing engines, throwing punches.

He  _knows_  these things. He knows because in another lifetime, it took just a glance to  _know_. He rebuilt Dean one molecule at a time, celestial intent made flesh, a clockwork miracle patched together with Grace.

Still, he does not  _understand_.

And these are some - oh, a minuscule fraction-  of the things he does not understand:

Dean fixed his wrist while they were sitting in Nora’s kitchen, every movement efficient and precise, utterly businesslike; but when the light hit his eyes just so, there was a shine to them, as if 0.001% of his 53% of water (67% hydrogen, but how many atoms of oxygen? Once he would have been able to tell at a glance;  _once_ —) had gathered in them.

Dean had knelt in the kitchen and tended to Castiel’s wrist, his knees on the tiled floor, and Castiel had recalled the birthmark, and imagined how it must look enclosed in the folds of Dean’s skin where the knee bent at the juncture point, but that did not explain why he wanted to  _touch_  it, to brush a fingertip agains the tiny, darker patch, feel if the skin there was as soft as he supposed; he should be able to tell: he  _made it himself_   - but that was then and this is now and it doesn’t feel like knowing at all.

Dean has somewhere between 87 and 104 freckles on his face but Castiel cannot know how many he sees right now, when Dean turns to smile at him wearily from his own single bed, and this somehow feels like a crime.

It had felt like a crime when Dean had stopped touching him too, the bandage wrapped tightly, fingers of one hand lingering even as he drew himself back up to his feet - “Let’s get you some ibuprofen, buddy” - and Castiel had almost risen with him, the tide to his moon, mourning the loss of warmth; not understanding how hands so rough and weathered with fighting  (not just fighting monsters, but fighting to stay  _alive_ , and this is something Castiel is just now beginning to comprehend) could possibly have been so attentive and precise, so careful and gentle, so discreet but so comforting.

And he knows, without  _knowing_ , that Dean has done this before, many times, for many a loved one: helping his father get a splint firmly in place; stitching Sam up with dental floss and a sewing needle; pouring whiskey over his wounds, whether bodily or not, when nobody else would.

And he  _knows_ , without knowing, that if there ever had been any healthy food to be had when Dean was a child - 20 dollars run out fast when a parent is running weeks late - that he would have given it to Sam, because that’s what Dean  _does_  - he  _cares_. Cares so much about everything, _everyone_ , that Castiel remembers being choked by it, as an angel; he remembers holding a damaged soul in his grip and feeling dizzy and breathless from the intensity of  _love_ , the stubborn, blind  _need_  to care and protect, and he remembers thinking  _how does anyone do it, how do these humans survive, how can anyone feel this way and not burn down from the inside out—_

Most of all, Castiel does not understand this:

How  _some angel you are_  turned into  _you’re family_.

How _you are like a brother to me, don’t make me lose you too, I’m not leaving here without you, I need you here, I need you to come back, I need you I need you I need you_  turned into  _you can’t stay_.

How  _you can’t stay_  turned into pleading eyes and an earnest, hopeful smile, and hands touching him whenever possible - a nudge on the shoulder, a thump on the chest, the careful lingering of warm fingers on a broken wrist - and  _where to, Cas?_

He doesn’t understand. Any of it. It’s confusing, maddening, dizzying.

He never really understood it before, as an angel, either - but it didn’t seem to matter. He doesn’t know why it would matter now. But it does.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Dean smiles, almost shy, nudging his leg with a socked foot without moving from the bed.

And words crowd on Castiel’s tongue, rush to the tip of it, press against his teeth, fighting to come out,  _tell me explain to me show me teach me be honest with me_ , but he clamps them down and swallows.

“I am very tired. I must have spaced out,” he says, with eyes downcast and a tiny smile; he’s 67% sure he will regret it.


End file.
